The Little Troll
by Alec Star
Summary: After the destruction of Sunnydale Buffy finds herself with a new destiny and confronting an old enemy. COMPLETE!


**Disclaimer:** I don't own the characters, I don't own the concepts, I make no money, I make no sense and I get no sleep... on the other hand I absolutely love feedback.

The Little Troll  
(Buffy's POV)

Of the countless horrifying sights I've seen over the past nine years the one in front of me is undoubtedly one of the most terrifying. I'm not old, not really. I'm only twenty four though at times I do feel ancient, but there are some nightmares I was confident I had left behind, some demons I was certain would not be coming back to haunt me --and in my line of work I do mean literally-- unfortunately now it seems that some of those certainties were a little premature.

The thing is that a lot has changed in my life in these past two years, ever since Willow activated all the slayers and Sunnydale was lost. The first change had to do with the fact that I was no longer the Chosen One, in fact I wasn't even half of the Chosen Two, I was instead one of hundreds of slayers. I won't deny that it was a difficult adjustment, one that was far from pleasant though it did serve to lift a giant weight off my shoulders. The problem is that with hundreds of slayers came hundreds of slayers and before I knew it there was arguing, hormones, posturing and more hormones... and not just of the girlie kind. I had assumed that seeing how slayers are girls we would be spared the testosterone fueled pissing contests but boy was I wrong about that. Yes, I won't deny that I was struggling with the changes in my life, desperately looking for a way to escape from it all and then Giles managed to get control of the Council's assets and made the discovery that allowed me to get away, the discovery that brought me to this point.

It happened almost by accident. Giles was going over the information that had been retrieved from one of the secondary archives of the Old Council, one he hadn't even known existed and that had survived the blowing up of the main headquarters. My watcher was delighted when he realized just how many of the documents he had been all but certain had been lost had actually been recovered... and then he found it.

At first I didn't know what **_it_** was, just that going by the look of some of the papers in Giles's hand it was connected to the military... and as far as I was concerned **_that_** was most definitely **_not _**of the good. I wasn't wrong about that, though it turns out that the mess I had to clean up this time around was Air Force, not Army. Big freaking difference... **_not_**.

But I am getting ahead of myself.

Yes, those papers changed my life and brought me to this point but before that happened Giles had no choice but to fill me in on one tiny little detail he had never really mentioned in regard to the slayer: in the very old days, back in the very beginning, the slayer hadn't been created to fight vampires... that came later. In the beginning the slayer was meant to fight an entirely different kind of demon, one that was no longer supposed to exist in our dimension, one that had theoretically been vanquished many thousands of years ago... did you notice that long Giles-like word, theoretically? Yups, that is the one that holds the key, the one that explains just **_why_** I'm here, fighting those original demons once again.

One of the things Giles told me about them was that, just like vampires, the ancient demons were parasitical in nature. That was in fact the reason why, once they were vanquished, the very old watchers in the very old days decided that vampires would make a natural new target for an unemployed warrior they couldn't quite figure out what to do with. They had created the slayer and the slayer line and that slayer had served her purpose but after that she became a liability, a threat... a hunter without a pray, and they realized too late that the line could not be extinguished.

Anyway, while there were some similarities between both kinds of demons there were also some noticeable differences. To begin with there was the fact that while a vampire's host is an animated corpse whose soul has been released, the host of those ancestral demons was nowhere near as lucky. He or she was doomed to live for all eternity, a prisoner in a body he could no longer control. Another important difference was to be found in the form of the demon itself... or lack thereof. Vampires have no shape beyond that of the corpse they animate, the ancient demons did have a form, a body of their own that actually merged with that of their host.

The point is that slayers became vampire slayers only after they had already won the war they were originally meant to fight. The fact is that the early slayers did manage to rid the world of the demons they were meant to hunt... maybe because it wasn't so much that they had to annihilate them but rather drive them out of our reality.

The demons had reached our world through a sort of portal, a 'hellmouth' that had eventually been successfully and permanently sealed... or at least that was the theory. Unfortunately it seems that thousands of years ago the slayer in turn failed to foresee the advent of curious archeologists, the USAF and human stupidity that doesn't seem to know when to leave well enough alone... okay, maybe only the third one of those elements was really predictable.

Anyway, a few days after Giles found those papers --and several calls to a whole bunch of very big shots later-- I was told that I was being redeployed, and before I knew it I found myself literally buried under a mountain in the middle of nowhere with a very important new --or was that old?-- mission... and to make matters worse I got stuck working side by side with the military. Do I have to say that I was not a happy camper? Well, I wasn't, at least not at first.

Over all I have to say that it's been less awful than I had feared it would be. Even though I wasn't really looking forward to working with these people the truth is that I've managed to make a few friends here and I'm really glad to be finally free of the newbies. They are Faith's responsibility now and that is fine by me. In addition to that being here has provided me with a brand new batch of enemies that are sort of a challenge and that is most definitely a welcome change because the truth is that --after almost ten years as a slayer-- dusting fledges was getting to be more than a little boring. Yes, over all things had been going better for me here than I had dared to hope. And yes, that is **_had_**, as in past tense, as in up until a few minutes ago, when some old not-quite-allies of the SGC decided to drop by for a visit... for one reason or another.

It wasn't exactly an unannounced visit, the Tollans had come by a little earlier to warn us that the Nox had something they wanted to discuss with us... and apparently that was a good thing, seeing how blowing up the Nox for showing up in the embarkation room unannounced definitely wouldn't have been of the good.

The thing is that as soon as word of their upcoming visit began to spread through the base I could see by everyone's reactions that they were happy at the prospect... and it was also apparent that their dropping by was anything but an everyday occurrence. I had never met the Nox before but from what I had been told I knew that they are these ancient, peaceful and wise beings, who literally wouldn't harm a fly if their lives depended on it. They are also extremely powerful, though they usually keep to themselves... and on top of that they also happen to be one of the Big Four.

I admit that as the base got ready to welcome them I was more than a little amused at the sight of Daniel and Sam --both of whom seemed to be more hyper than a new slayer who's managed to get her hands on a pound of chocolate just before her very first patrol-- trying to explain to me just what the big deal about the Nox was supposed to be. One of the things the two of them seemed to be most hyper about was the fact that for once Anteaus was actually going to be here. They kept going on and on about that.

From what they said I gather that he is someone who once saved their butts, who actually brought them back to life after they had been killed by some of Apophis's Jaffa way back when. In other words he is someone they obviously think of fondly, even though at times they do find his insistence on the fact that humans are just too **_young_** to be out there to be more than a little annoying. I wisely kept my mouth shut and didn't tell them that as far as I am concerned Anteaus is probably right about that... I didn't think they'd appreciate it.

The thing is that it was precisely because of Anteaus's less than favorable view of humanity that his visit was deemed to be so important. The higher ups at the SGC were kind of hoping that maybe with a little luck --and if they could actually manage to keep the more military minded elements away from this meeting-- this encounter could possibly serve to set the basis for something closer to establishing permanent relations with these people... and I won't deny that the enthusiasm that was coursing through the base prior to the Nox's arrival was somewhat contagious.

I must confess that after hearing pretty much everyone going on and on for hours about the Nox I too ended up getting caught in the excitement and I was actually looking forward to meeting them... maybe that is the reason why this sudden confrontation with what I had believed to be a demon I had slain long ago caught me so totally off guard. This is the last place in which I had been expecting to face a monster I had thought was long dead and buried... or in the stomach of a giant snake as the case might be. The point is that when the wormhole engaged and the alien figures emerged from the stargate I found myself being suddenly confronted with a nightmare from my past and the only thing I could do was to stare and wonder what on earth was Snyder doing here.

* * *

**_Author's note:_** Okay, this is a simple and rather predictable little ficlet but I had this idea of how the slayer could have originally been created to fight the Goa'uld and I wanted to do something with it... who knows, maybe in time I will develop the concept further (and maybe I'll even toss in something remotely resembling a plot). 


End file.
